Sunday at Offatts - O' Boy

As those in South Texas know, there was a Low Pressure area that moved from Mexico through Texas and brought us some rain and wind. Well we knew it was comming and had tested the anchor, put out more chain and the storm bridle. Steve stood anchor watch from 0300 until around 0730. All was well and the storm was coming but we were ready (Hah). Had a quick breakfast and we went to the engine room to do a wire repair on the genset. The wind appeared to come up very heavy and rock the boat. Carol went topside and called for Steve to come up. Opps, the boat was drifting and the anchor was dragging. The drama began. Steve started the engines and turned on the windless. Carol took the helm and Steve went to pull in the anchor. Chain fouled in the pipe. Windless circuit breaker popped. Carol did a great job keeping us off the shore. Got windless going again. Carol learned how to help in heavy wind get anchor in. Tried resetting anchor, no joy, wind much to high so we went in the lee of a business building and were idleing there until the wind settled.  Carol hollered that the dingy was loose. Aparently, the lines we had the dingy tied with got under the boat and the spurs cut it loose. So here we are trying to catch a wayward dingy in 40+ winds. Got it and tied it along side. Continued our idleing until wind died down some. Reanchored and seem to be ok for now.  A survey of the boat though showed that the bimini aft of the radar arch was damaged. One side of he bows that hold the bimini cover had come loose and both bow zippers had ripped off. so have to sew that part back on. The flapping of the bimini had broken the wind speed instriment. Part to order. Lost our trashcan. But all is well, we got the boat back in control with no real damage and LEARNED a lot. Of course there were some frazzled nerves but nothing to stop us from going on.